Page 102 of The Fulbourn: Pitch & Sickle

The remains of the amuletum were melting from him, leaving him wide open, vulnerable. He breathed in and kicked at the whip. It crumbled, releasing a puff of white like a pie cut straight from the oven. Gods damn it, he’d lost a boot and sock somewhere along the line. But his corset still pressed him close, held a few shreds of him together. A good thing. If the boning had been ruined too, it would have been the veritable last straw. The gods themselves could not have saved this Sanctuary. He would have razed it. Along with everyone in it.

‘Steady, steady,’ he whispered to himself, while the beast punched at him, and the pendant watch rubbed at his bone, trying to scratch its pin through to the marrow. The flames snapped about like a ship’s ropes cut in a storm, slashing against the helm, making it fucking hard to keep on course.

‘Keep it together, you imbecile.’

Breathe. That was important, wasn’t it? To keep breathing. The ankou seemed to think so. He’d said it more than once when Pitch lost his hold.

Breathe for me.

Pitch dragged in a long breath. Filled his furnace lungs. Held the air. Let it bubble and boil.

The torrent of flames escaping his fingertips slowed to a dribble, then a drip, then nothing at all. He was glowing; he was restless and on the brink, but he was not incinerating anything. That was good.

‘Very good,’ he said to the ash and scorched hallway.

He raised his head, and his satisfied smile wilted away. He’d expected, for a split second, to find the ankou there. Grinning with that trace of smugness Silas sometimes allowed himself, rather than saying outrightI told you so. Silas, ever ready with a word of praise and a gleam of delight in his eyes.

Shit. Pitchwasmad.

He was also very sore. In every crack and pore, but mostly at that place upon his back the halo had claimed. The amuletum was all but fired away. Another release of the flame like that, and the pain would be overwhelming, the beast devouring the agony like a fresh carcass.

The strangeness in his arm shifted Pitch from his grim musings. A throb like a tiny, sharp pulse. Seraphiel’s trinket was beating. He glanced up, ensuring he’d rid himself of the Dullahan. The considerable smoking hole in the woodwork at the end of the hallway suggested he’d done so reasonably well. It would be nice to imagine that the prick received the message loud and clear this time and would stay the fuck away. But it was a fanciful thought. The Dullahan was obliged to hunt him. The only way to be rid of him entirely was to submit or rescind the deal made with the bluecaps. Pitch’s life in exchange for Silas’s safe escape. Pitch would never renege on the deal.

The Unseelie Court would never, ever make the oaf their captive instead.

Pitch scowled down at the sharp thumping in his forearm. If he squinted, he was quite sure he could see his skin tugging with each beat. Very precise beats.

Marking time.

The bloody watch was ticking.

He heaved a put-out sigh.

It was entirely possible there was not a single inch of him that did not hurt. His head ached with a passion from the horse’s hoof; the punctures of arrowheads and whip both were uncomfortable as they all healed. He was quite sure there was a nasty splinter in his bare foot. The Sanctuary was doing him over well.

Pitch rubbed at his arm, felt the bump like a lost knuckle there beneath the smoothness of his skin.

‘I hear you,’ he muttered. ‘I am listening.’

Pity he could not understand the language of a ticking angel clock.

He turned and decided that of the two choices of direction he had, he would head back the way they had come, keeping clear of the bristled wood torn up by the bones. Pitch took a step, and the mild tick turned into a much harsher tock. A spasm gripped his arm, jerking it back behind him, every muscle stiff as a pendulum in a grandfather clock.

‘Gods!’ He spun on his booted heel. At once the shallower ticking resumed. The tension eased. ‘You have absolutely got to be joking,’ he whispered, cognisant he may be observed.

Time was leading him on. Gods, it was just like the Seraph to be so fucking fanciful.

Pitch stomped his way up the corridor. His infernal limp made all the more pronounced by his lack of footwear upon his right foot. If nothing else, he intended to find his bloody boot.

His hoof-struck mind threw an image at him.

Edward.

The very same nondescript picture of the lieutenant he’d seen when he first touched the watch. The man had a faint smile on his lips and was looking at something that pleased him, but there was no hint of background to make what it was clear.

‘Well, that’s a waste of a vision,’ he grumbled.

Find the prophet.